Having spent the morning listening to Hire on Fire and, later on, reviewing the latest re-issue from Aura Noir, it’s fair to say that any band next on the list would have to be both pretty special and pretty damn heavy to make a dent. It is, therefore, all credit to With Burning Contempt that they not only hold their own against the two aforementioned legendary acts, but actually sound like they belong right alongside with them with their brutal mixture of toxic sludge riffs and acid-savaged vocals. A four track EP, ‘red visions’ is a stunningly vital piece of work that is described with disarming honesty in the press release as being “a couple of guys playing raw, simple metal predominantly and unashamedly influenced by the music of a few key bands they grew up on in the early 80’s tape trading scene…. Cough, cough… we are old.” Old With Burning Contempt may be, but with age comes experience (or so I keep trying to convince myself) and this EP, cunningly labelled with the axiomatic instruction to ‘play this recording loud’, reeks of the passion and love of music that fuelled the aforementioned tape-trading scene and therefore transcends the more clinical approach of the digital age and transports the listener back to a time when finding new music was all about calculating postage and spending hours copying grimy 7” records on to tape for friends both near and far.
Listening to the title track with its simple drums and Motorhead-esque riffs (all of which come to a grinding halt about a minute in to be replaced by blackened sludge of monolithic proportions), it’s hard to say whether it is a nostalgic yearning for the long lost days when music fans cared enough to make real effort to share the bands they loved, or the fact that WBC have somehow perfectly tapped into the primal vein that runs through the work of Darkthrone and Aura Noir, but whatever the cause the net result is a genuine feeling of excitement that rises from the pit of the stomach and sends adrenalin charging through the body for the duration of the recording. ‘Defaced’ is similarly electric, the guitars a monumental weight that presses down upon the listener even as the vocals claw their way to the surface from the murky depths, propelled only by the ugly percussive backbone which the track possesses. The nihilistic miasma of ‘we are nothing’ maintains the intensity of the assault, the drums and guitar gloriously simple in style and structure yet never dull or obviously without substance. The band themselves recognise that these are “straight forward, easy to play, dark and angry songs…” and yet, as is so often the case, what these songs might lack in technicality they more than make up for in attitude and aggression with the result that this is music that you feel on an instinctive level, with your gut and heart rather than your head, and it sounds awesome. The final track on this all-too short (but beautifully presented) EP is entitled ‘untrue weapons’ and its scything, simplistic assault, perfectly concludes this ugly beast, leaving you charged with the energy of youth and the conviction that WBC have perfectly captured the spirit and intensity of those bands that grew within the tape-trading era.
Whether WBC are planning further releases is not stated –if they do deliver an album I’d want to see it pressed on to scratchy black vinyl or hand-labelled cassette tapes for these formats would seem to be the band’s most natural home – but what is clear is that ‘red visions’ is a labour of love first and foremost. The two architects of this sonic pummelling (Tim Gutierrez and David Atkinson) clearly absorbed the vital spirit of the bands they grew up with and, with the benefit of a nostalgic glance, they have somehow conjured up the sound of that era as rose-tinted glasses would view it now. Raw, brutal, simple and yet absorbing, this is a must for black metal fans and can be found on bandcamp (see link below). This is the sort of music we live for at SonicAbuse – played for sheer hell of it and the joy of creativity With Burning Contempt are essential listening.
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